The GPRS recommendations belong to the GSM recommendations. The maintenance
of all GSM recommendations is now handled within the Third Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP) organization, the partners of which are:

ETSI, the European standardization entity;

Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) and
Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC), the Japanese standardization
entities;

These standardization bodies have decided to collaborate within the 3GPP
organization in order to produce specifications for a third-generation mobile
system. At the beginning, the 3GPP organization was in charge of all
specifications related to the third-generation mobile system for radio access
technologies called Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and for evolution
of GSM core networks.

Since August 2000, specifications related to GSM radio access are also the
responsibility of the 3GPP. The 3GPP takes the place of the former Special
Mobile Group (SMG) GSM organization. The 3GPP is organized around technical
specification groups (TSGs) that deal with the following subjects:

TSG GERAN (GSM EDGE Radio Access Network), focusing on GSM radio
interface, A and Gb interfaces.

Thus GSM evolutions as GPRS are treated in all TSGs except TSG RAN, which
deals exclusively with UTRAN access technologies such as frequency division
duplex (FDD), time-division duplex (TDD), and CDMA 2000. The TSG GERAN deals
exclusively with the GSM radio interface evolutions and with A and Gb
interfaces. The 3GPP recommendations are ranked according to a version
reference.

Each new version of 3GPP recommendations contains a list of new features or a
list of improvements on existing features. Initially, the GSM recommendations
versions were referenced in the following order: Phase 1; Phase 2; Release 96;
Release 97; Release 98; Release 99. As the reference year for the new version of
phase 2++ recommendations no longer matched the release year of these
specifications, it was decided that the versions following Release 99 will be
referenced according to a version number, Release 4 being the first new version
reference.

The GSM recommendations are organized up to Release 99 in the following
series:

01 series: General;

02 series: Service Aspects;

03 series: Network Aspects;

04 series: MS-BS Interface and Protocols;

05 series: Physical Layer on the Radio Path;

06 series: Speech Coding Specification;

07 series: Terminal Adaptors for MSs;

08 series: BS-MSC Interface;

09 series: Network Interworking;

11 series: Equipment and Type Approval Specification;

12 series: Operation and Maintenance.

Each of the series contains a list of specifications identified by numbers. A
given specification is therefore defined by its series number, followed by a
recommendation number. For example, the 05.03 specification belongs to the
physical layer on the radio path, and deals with channel coding issues.

In Release 4 of the 3GPP recommendations, the former GSM 01, 02, 03, 04, 05,
and 06 series were kept for all GSM features that have not evolved with the
third generation. From Release 4, these GSM series numbers were replaced by new
series numbers, to be compliant with the 3GPP numbering. New series numbers can
easily be deduced by adding 40 to the GSM series. Thus the 05 series describing
the physical layer on the radio path become the 45 series from release 4. Also,
the specification numbers in each series are deduced from the previous numbers
by inserting a 0 as the first number. Thus, the R99 05.03 becomes the 45.003
from R4. Note that the different releases are continuously maintained.

The GPRS feature was introduced in Release 97 of the 3GPP recommendations.
The GPRS recommendations are organized in three stages, as are all 3GPP
recommendations:

Stage 1: Description of GPRS services;

Stage 2: Description of GPRS general architecture;

Stage 3: Detailed description of different equipment implemented for
GPRS with their external interfaces.

The Stage 1 GPRS recommendations describe the services that will be provided
by GPRS. The service description is given in the 02 series recommendations for
Release 97 and Release 98 of the 3GPP recommendations and in the 22 series
recommendations from Release 99. The evolution of GPRS services is discussed in
Working Group 1 (WG1) of TSG SA within the 3GPP.

The stage 2 GPRS recommendations describe the general architecture of GPRS,
with nodes implemented in the network and the interface mechanisms between these
nodes. The description of the architecture is given in the 03 series of the
recommendations for Release 97 and Release 98 of the 3GPP recommendations and in
23 series recommendations from Release 99. The evolution of GPRS architecture is
discussed in WG2 of TSG SA within the 3GPP.

The stage 3 GPRS recommendations describe in a detailed manner the equipment
and its external interfaces implemented in the network for GPRS (see 04, 05, 06,
and 08 series recommendations up to Release 99, and then 44, 45, and 46 series
recommendations from Release 4). The evolution of the behavior of this equipment
is discussed in working groups of several associated TSGs.